


j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Amnesia, Autistic Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Dancing, Drama & Romance, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Fanart Welcome, Halloween, Identity Reveal, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug has ADHD, Podfic Welcome, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Masquerade!Burning glances, turning headsMasquerade!Stop and stare at the sea of smiles around youThere's no point looking for his partner here, he reminds himself, moving through the room, looking for his partner. (Not the chestnut-haired fox fursona with orange domino mask—not Sabrina the teenage witch and her bottle of Alixir, but he approves of everything about that except the mood Chloé is probably taking out on people—not the dark blue-violet dinner suit nor the crimson cocktail dress and double strand of black pearls, wow, did they eventry?—)No, Adrien is awake. He knows this because he is wearing all this leather clothing he had to buy instead of imagine, and it still feels too loose, too heavy, too warm, and he never did find a long enough belt with the right shape buckle. Staff-wise, partner-wise, he's simply out of luck.Halloween Masquerade31 October19 h 00Restaurant du Grand Parishosted by Chloé BourgeoisWill he recognize me?Marinette wonders, then snorts at her own absurdity.In your dreams.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 7
Kudos: 93





	j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GalahadWilder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Gabriel played himself](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/716465) by GalahadWilder. 



> This story has a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhcRshMVmc9msA0pCzad75G58xuT387RQ)! Lyrics as follows:
> 
> • "[Masquerade](https://genius.com/Andrew-lloyd-webber-masquerade-why-so-silent-lyrics)" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's _The Phantom of the Opera_  
>  • "[Superstition](https://genius.com/Stevie-wonder-superstition-lyrics)" by Stevie Wonder  
> • "[Demons](https://genius.com/Imagine-dragons-demons-lyrics)" by Imagine Dragons  
> • "[Monster Mash](https://genius.com/Bobby-boris-pickett-monster-mash-lyrics)" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett  
> • "[J'ai rêvé](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/jai-r%C3%AAv%C3%A9-i-dreamed.html)" by Dalida, a cover of "[Dream Lover](https://genius.com/Bobby-darin-dream-lover-lyrics)" by Bobby Darin (I'm trying to present Dalida's lyrics sometimes in French and sometimes in literal English translation, which is not much like Darin's original)  
> • "[Another One Bites the Dust](https://genius.com/Queen-another-one-bites-the-dust-lyrics)" by Queen  
> • "[Third Eye](https://genius.com/Florence-the-machine-third-eye-lyrics)" by Florence + the Machine  
> • "[Dream Lover](https://genius.com/Tanya-tucker-dream-lover-lyrics)" by Tanya Tucker ft. Glen Campbell, a cover of guess which  
> • "[Movement](https://genius.com/Hozier-movement-lyrics)" by Hozier

The texture of the rose-red denim is still screamingly _wrong_. Wrong like a broccoli scone, or XY covering Jagged Stone, or being alert and aware and alone. The fabric is from the same manufacturer as the carnation pink denim Marinette made her other newest pair of jeans and matching jacket with, and nothing about the different dye lots should change the texture…

"That's not the real problem here, Marinette, and you know it," Marinette mumbles to herself, since no one else is here to tell her.

She smooths bare fingertips over one of the round black cotton appliqués on the jacket front—not super quality, easy for a cat to snag his claws on; phantom touch poised sharp and hesitant over her breast, ardent and lethal in his hold on her heart—and shivers. That's never happened. Not even close. Even in the dreams, that's dreaming.

"I could still go as Sailor Mars," Marinette murmurs. "Nothing else." That costume—white puffy-sleeved leotard with its red collar and miniskirt and its red and purple bows; low red heels; dangly red star earrings and alcohol wipes; craft foam tiara—is already inside the reversible bag she's bringing either way. Alya said she expected Marinette to knock Adrien's socks off wearing that, and judging by the starstruck look in Adrien's eyes when Marinette answered his "Wearing what?", that is absolutely what's going to happen. Marinette's looking forward to it, even!

It isn't _Adrien_ whose attention Marinette wants.

"He won't be there," Marinette informs the girl in the mirror, who's stripped to sports bra and panties, her skin visibly prickling with cold or nerves while she argues with herself. "Not on my balcony, not on the rooftops, not on the Tour Eiffel, and _definitely_ not at Chloé's masquerade ball."

A rose by any other name will only smell as sweet if it exists for her to touch, after all. The green sclerae and gold irises, someone could fake. Even the slitted pupils, if they never changed with lighting or mood. The physics-defying lean muscles, the Cheshire grin, the soft ears that twitch toward any sound as though they're alive? No. Impossible.

Marinette throws on a black tee anyway. Then black socks and the red appliquéd jeans, tucking in the tee and adding a belt that she only needs because her yo-yo is painted wood. (She could hang it from its red carabiner clip from a belt loop, but that's less fun.) Then steel-toed work boots she claimed are patent leather when Luka saw her breaking them in; they're shaped stylishly enough, and she's shined them enough, that they almost pass muster. The cropped jacket and the kidskin gloves (the right texture on her cheek, almost, but sized for her hands and cold without his) will have to wait until she's done her face.

Rubbing alcohol goes in a small bowl, and the earrings Marinette hasn't taken off since Alya gave them to her two years ago go in the rubbing alcohol. They're still plain dark red cabochon butterfly-clutch studs, almost black in the evening sunlight, and she doesn't know why this should be surprising: the gold ball studs she got when she got a second set of lobe piercings at the end of August don't change when she takes them out for the first time either, and Marinette didn't expect them to. The enamel ladybeetle earrings she bought at the same time (one insect's elytra closed, the other open) also get sterilized before Marinette fits those in the old holes and Alya's gifts in the new ones.

"Right," Marinette tells the empty air, once she has washed her hands and face and brushed her hair into a temporary ponytail. Here lined up neatly are the foundation she got Juleka to help her match to her skin tone, the shimmery blue eyeshadow that Rose suggested putting just a little at the inner corners of her eyes to make the gray irises seem blue, the matte carmine lip color Rose suggested right after, and the makeup kit she bought all herself. She must already have opened the kit, and the makeup remover isn't with the rest—oh, good, that and her wallet and emergency cookies and emergency sewing kit are in with the rest of her Sailor Mars costume.

 _You have so many other great qualities!_ she dreamed him saying, right after she yanked her hand out of kissing range and turned away. She also dreamed keeping him in her peripheral vision so he wouldn't notice her watching him while he continued _I'm just in charge of the humor department_ : so he would remember her being irritated at his clowning, not her provoking him to smirk at her or worried he wouldn't. If he finds out she literally bought a clown makeup kit…

"Right," she says. "Time to get my spots on."

 _Ew, ew, ew, slime on my face, ew slimy get it off_ —

Oh yeah, that's why she needed Juleka's help with the prep. And her freckles are disappearing as she applies the skin-tone cream, same as—better than—the tired purple marks under her eyes are. _Will he recognize me without my freckles?_ Marinette wonders, then snorts at her own absurdity, reaching for the white foundation.

 _In your dreams_.

* * *

Sneaking into Chloé's party is much easier than sneaking out of Adrien's house. No double-checking where the security cameras are pointed or triple-checking his route. No strapping a spray bottle of WD-40 to the end of several taped-together broom handles, with increasingly complicated cord-and-spring mechanisms on the nozzle trigger until he figures out how to actually squirt the lubricant on the highest potentially-squeaky window hinge. (No wondering if his Instagram post from March about hypothetical roommates and his post from the previous July about a poltergeist were separate pranks or both nodding at the same secret.) No apologetic mumbling about a lot of homework and a stubborn video game level when he lets Nathalie catch him in loungewear at the espresso machine Adrien isn't supposed to touch. No conspiratorial brewing of a second cup while he thinks about someone else he's sometimes bribed by feeding the coffee addiction other people in her life discourage.

Piece of cake.

All Adrien has to do to get into the Grand Paris is show the invitation graphic on his phone, with its time and theme in white Gothic calligraphy with a wispy silver spiderweb off-center on the black background. He almost doesn't even need to do that much: the doorkeeper sees Adrien's mask and headband and barely glances at his invite before directing him up to the hotel restaurant.

Though she expects him to, he doesn't stop by Chloé's suite before he enters the restaurant, one hand in his pocket to toy with the lucky charm Marinette gave him. Chloé has had the space transformed with black draperies and tablecloths, midnight-blue or silver-spiderweb lace doilies on those tables that remain, a ticking grandfather clock, mirrors framed in ornate gold, matching candelabras with flickering LED candles, and crimson silk rosebuds in vases and as napkin rings. She's even turned down the thermostat and strategically placed some number of fans (one of them is squeaking), for the dramatic effect of a ghostly chill. _Thirteen-month-old baby,_ Stevie Wonder is singing over the sound system, _broke the looking glass…_

—On second thought, maybe Adrien didn't need an invite at all. That young Jagged Stone with aqua-tipped hair is definitely Luka, and Chloé definitely did not invite him.

Maybe he's here as Marinette's plus-one? Not that the invitations admit the possibility of plus-ones—fortunately for him, because otherwise the only reason Lila wouldn't have asked Adrien is if he'd already made a point of planning to accompany Chloé as the eternal companion of her Dracula's daughter. Chloé herself is done up with smoky eyeshadow and blood-red lips and a black cardigan (probably cashmere) buttoned only at her throat to give a more dramatic effect to the low neckline of her long black sheath gown. Adrien is just making a note to avoid her for the evening, or at least keep out of arm's reach, when she spots him across the room and gives his leather slacks and coat a most disdainful once-over: the sort she gives people too plebeian for her, not the sort she gives Adrien when she thinks he's slumming it. He winks at her, grinning; she grimaces and turns away.

The butterfly-flutters of fear in his stomach settle, folding their wings, and Adrien's grin almost becomes real.

There's no point looking for his partner here, he reminds himself, moving through the room on the balls of his feet, looking for his partner. (Not the chestnut-haired fox fursona with orange domino mask—not Sabrina the teenage witch and her bottle of Alixir, but he approves of everything about that except the mood Chloé is probably taking out on people—not the dark blue-violet dinner suit nor the crimson cocktail dress and double strand of black pearls, wow, did they even _try_?—)

No, Adrien is awake. He knows this because he is wearing all this leather clothing he had to buy instead of imagine, and it still feels too loose, too heavy, too warm, and he never did find a long enough belt with the right shape buckle. Staff-wise, partner-wise, he's simply out of luck.

Also, Kagami as Sailor Mercury—complete without sleeves and with temporary blue hair dye and the Sacred Sword straight out of _Sailor Moon Crystal_ —is not a picture Adrien would have dreamed up. Though maybe he should have, he thinks, snorting to himself when he recognizes the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' intro. Or, given the potential too-hot-to-handle of putting Kagami as Sailor Mercury next to Marinette as Sailor Mars whenever Marinette gets here, maybe it's just as well he didn't.

Adrien weaves around the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and a visored Ghostbuster with four colors of hair twists, Nathaniel as Crowley and Marc who must therefore be Aziraphale, and two green-wigged dryads (one brown, one pale, each with a matching walking stick her own height) and two pale naiads (one blonde, one redheaded), on the way to Kagami's side. "Excellent costume," Adrien says. "Did I know you do cosplay?"

"Unlikely," Kagami says, regarding Adrien impassively. "I commissioned a friend of mine."

"Oh, it's Marinette's work!" Adrien realizes. "I should have known. Do you know when she's getting here?"

"You know Marinette?" Kagami asks evenly.

…It is one thing for Adrien's oldest friend not to recognize him, when he is on the far side of the restaurant wearing the opposite of Adrien Agreste™ aesthetic. It is something else entirely—and it's only been a month, and pretending indifference may be her style but pretending ignorance is not—to see that lack of recognition in his ex-girlfriend's eyes.

(He isn't _supposed_ to be recognized while masked in black. _Our identities must remain secret,_ he dreamed her saying, early and often. This is a _good_ thing. Right?)

Adrien shakes his head with a contrite smile and slips off into the crowd, letting his nerves be soothed by the reassuring familiarity of a flutter in his chest he can't identify, positioned wrong to be his heart. There's a charcuterie board on the refreshments table; he eats one cube of cheddar and pockets another. He stops a few meters and several people short of the music booth, where an auburn-and-copper-ponytailed Majestia is laughing at something DJ Knightowl just said (the sound obscured by the lyric _when your dreams all fail and the ones we hail_ ): Adrien doesn't want to find out if Nino and Alya won't recognize him either. ( _I wanna hide the truth, I wanna shelter you, but with the beast inside, there's nowhere we can hide—_ ) Still no Sailor Mars, though:

> _Role Model:_ I made it to the masquerade! No promises on Nathalie and Gorilla not coming to haul me home, though
> 
> _Role Model:_ When will you get here?
> 
> _Sewfisticated:_ someone spiked the punch
> 
> _Sewfisticated:_ fair warning, I'm in a Mood

Ah, by the bar: shoulder-length blue-black hair, red satin ribbons streaming from the clips keeping her hair off her ears, and a flash of red under a wide black purse strap at the diminutive shoulder. Good thing Marinette isn't _really_ Sailor Mars, because otherwise the cat-and-mouse game he's playing (he thinks, sneaking up behind her) would get his eyebrows charred off; she certainly flattened Kim thoroughly enough last week. And she's wearing Athanase, The Fragrance, again; the rosemary-blackberry-bergamot suits her better than any of the other unflatteringly named scents Adrien has to advertise.

Bracing himself to catch his best friend if she startles badly enough to fall, Adrien says, "Guess you beat me to the punch!"

Then he sees the black-spotted red mask painted around her fire-blue eyes.

* * *

Marinette bobbles her water cup, sets it down with the plate of cookies and cheese cubes she took from the food table, and bites back the first snap of exasperation to reply "It's not like there's a punchline."

Adrien _knows_ she reacts badly when people blindside her, damn it! He must be able to tell she's already on edge from so many people in the room, too, so many people she doesn't even know if she knows, even if he shouldn't know the denim is too loose and the boot heels too high and her face not half disguised enough by the paint that's making her skin crawl. He's allowed to sneak up on her, it's fun, sometimes it even works to knock her out of this sort of mood, but that doesn't make it always a good idea—and it's not his fault he's not the smartass she keeps looking for.

When he answers with neither something cheerful about the drink's popularity nor something witty about puns, Marinette turns around. Black, leather, mask, ears—metal claws sewn into the gloves' fingertips—his silhouette's all wrong, but so is hers, and if Marinette had been trying to cosplay as her partner instead of herself, she couldn't have done better than this—

"Uh," says Adrien. If it's Adrien. Those are definitely Adrien's wide, glistening green eyes. "N-nice of you to—to drop in."

Marinette's knees buckle.

Adrien catches her before she can do anything like shriek with joy, flail the punch bowl over them both, whack him with her bag, or burst into tears. Marinette leans into his radiant heat—he's _here_! he's real! his heart is pounding as loudly as her own—and lets him steer her over to one of the seating areas, abandoning her cup and empty plate. "Told you I'm madly clumsy," she reminds him.

"You weren't kidding," Adrien murmurs, with a bit of a laugh.

"I also told you I'm sorry and I didn't do it on purpose," Marinette says, totally failing to sound irritated, "but I put way too much work into this outfit and I'm not apologizing."

"Good, you shouldn't." Adrien flops artistically into the corner of a sofa, Marinette sliding smoothly onto his lap. "How long did it take you to sew on all those spots?"

"Uh. Hours?" Marinette wasn't exactly tracking her time for business purposes on this personal project. She takes one of Adrien's hands to examine the fingertips; the claws don't retract (but why would they?) and prove disappointingly dull. "Custom gloves?" she asks—wait. This is his _right_ hand. "Where's your ring?"

"Underneath." He laces his fingers together, wrapping Marinette loosely in his arms and trapping her hand between his: yes, she can tell the precious metal from the more-precious touch through both layers of fine leather. "Where are your earrings?"

"These _are_ my earrings." Marinette swallows hard, the implications sour in her mouth, and about as welcome as the taste of alcohol in her punch. "I think. I—you're—"

"A dream come true?" prompts Adrien with a small, shaky smile that hits her heart like a summer breeze, warm and free.

She snorts. "Or a wish my heart makes. I don't know. How are you _real_?"

Adrien shrugs one shoulder in reply (she's not surprised) and asks, "And what else is?"

Her partner isn't the high, sweet voice she expects to hear when she's alone. She hasn't met anyone with the cool ruthlessness of the woman in blue, or the barely-contained icy rage of the man in violet. And it has been seven—zero—interrobang weeks since the last time she and her partner wielded the staff he is not carrying and the repainted wooden yo-yo on her belt against a magical existential threat—

What else is real‽

* * *

"What were we fighting?" Marinette murmurs. She leans on Adrien, head on his chest—he isn't sure it's conscious; his heart seems to pulse faster just for her to hear—and whispers, her hand trembling between his, "Did we lose?"

"I don't know," Adrien must admit. "—Hey, hey, look at me," he interrupts her next thought, or he tries to. "Look at me."

Marinette flips out when she thinks she's screwed up; he doesn't want to let her, not least because he doesn't know whether she _did_. Everything about their partnership is fragments of sentences in the dream diary Adrien writes in ultraviolet pen. Disjointed flickers of thought even when examined under the black light he hides in the snack cabinet under packets of Super Yoyo sandwich cookies and bags of cheesy Monster Munch potato chips and boxes of petit écolier butter cookies (chocolat noir)—none of which explains the gym-socks smell. All fleeting incoherent flashes, invisible between the mundane lines of _La Modification_ shelved at his bedside between Leroux and Dumas. None of it is solid. Adrien has more proof his room's haunted.

 _None_ of it is solid, except the sixty compact kilos of silk, steel, and muscle hugging herself one-armed in Adrien's lap.

 _Of course. Gotta get physical_.

"Hey," Adrien says. "Wanna dance?"

Marinette blinks up at him, unshed tears glimmering in her gray eyes. "Dance?"

"I like dancing with you." Describing Adrien's recollection of the last couple years as 'Emmentaler Switzerland' is unfair—Emmentaler, after all, is generally less hole than cheese—but he remembers dancing with Marinette at a party Chloé threw months ago (he forgets why), again at Chloé's birthday party, and again on the New York trip to a solo guitar remix of the same slow song, feeling lighter than air with his hand in hers. "And you focus better if you're doing something physical," he says. "I know you do. Or," he adds when she doesn't look convinced, "I can go tango by myself while you laugh at me."

"You just like physical comedy," Marinette says, rolling her eyes, but she's snickering so it's a win. She hops off his lap, keeping one hand in his to tug him up with her, until she has to let go to leave her bag on the seat. "I don't know how to tango," she adds, silencing her phone before tucking it back in her jeans pocket, "but I hear it takes two."

"One moment."

> _Role Model:_ hey mister DJ put my song pon de replay
> 
> _Role Model:_ (please say you're taking requests)
> 
> _DJ Crash Crash:_ okay bro I'll take requests. Rihanna?
> 
> _Role Model:_ nope, this

Adrien uploads the mp3 of his on-and-off earworm of the past few weeks to the chat with Nino. The current soundtrack is how _suddenly, to my surprise, he did the mash_ , so they have a couple minutes of 'Monster Mash'. That'll do.

"Maman taught me," Adrien says. Maman is to blame for Adrien ever having heard this earworm, too. "Your hands go here and here—" He places one on his right shoulder, hooks his arm under hers, and takes her other hand. "—elbows stay forward, knees stay a bit bent, perfect. And I'm leading, so you cannot possibly step on my feet," he adds, mostly to get that exact amused huff.

The best bit is it's entirely true.

"Eight beats, five steps—actually let go, let me show you your part—" Maman was leading when she first taught eight-year-old Adrien, and it still feels more natural to move back and left instead of forward and right. "Back, back, back side side," Adrien says, demonstrating. "Slow, slow, quick quick slow."

Has Marinette really never tangoed before? She seems to know by instinct—; either that or he's modeling stance and balance perfectly and she's just that quick a study.

"Eight beats, four steps," Adrien says, "back, back, back, back," and Marinette smirks and turns it back on him, four steps forward for his eight-beat retreat. (Nino can joke about Marinette and Adrien sharing a single brain cell for the _rest of time_ and Adrien won't care. He's _missed_ this. He's missed being half of a whole.) _The zombies were having fun_ , eight beats four steps back, and talk her through the shift from closed to promenade position, from dancing while gazing at each other to dancing in the same direction.

* * *

_The scene was rockin', all were digging the sounds,_ they have an audience, but that's background. The pose that's more obviously tango, her left leg has to cross between both their right legs—she can't step on him, her ass—when her right foot can just move sideways when they move forward, before her left foot joins it. Slow, slow, quick quick slow, quick quick slow. Back, back, quick stop check, cross side close. Her partner has been right in front of her this whole time, distracting her with the apricot-orange name-brand cologne he's not wearing now, and Marinette _missed_ this. _The important thing is— —trust me on this—_ And they're dancing the tango to 'Monster Mash', and Alya will never ever let her live this down.

Igor and the mad scientist and the drum set fade out; a sultry slide down the xylophone takes up the cheerful new melody. Back, back, slow, slow, forth, forth, slow, slow, _J'ai rêvé cette nuit même, que tu me disais je t'aime,_ and if her partner didn't request this song specifically then she will eat her black kidskin gloves with soy sauce over rice.

He's grinning at her, the unrepentant ass.

Because of course they've dreamed every night, of dancing across streets and roofs to the music of their hearts, of being (if not the only dancers) the center of attention, of saying (with trust, if not words) how much they love and need each other. Fame, though they don't want it; fortune—that's important, somehow, like the ghostly partner giving a broken moon—

On the second chorus, if only because she's looking to her right as much as because she can smell him close and warm—sweat and leather and safety and love—she has the nerve to sing along: " _Oh dis-moi, oui toi, pourquoi? Crois-moi—_ " _Without love, nothing goes, and I need you so much…_

The melody descends, four pairs of notes; his blush rises, her cheeks flame.

This verse is sadder: solitude sliding into loneliness, lethargy spiraling around forgetfulness, losing the familiar patterns: _come back, I beg you_. She has half of tomorrow penciled in already to freak out properly. Back, back, back side side—easy enough to relearn each other, now they know who—

Slow, slow, quick quick slow. Back, back, quick stop _stare_ —

The music doesn't pause. That's the only thing that keeps them moving like they haven't seen that nightmare silver mask. "I thought he wore _violet_?" Marinette whispers, when she can trust her voice. The man's cane is violet, yes, but his suit is leaning toward indigo!

"I saw him earlier," Adrien replies, just as frantic, just as shushed. "I thought the gray was his _hair_."

Back, back, quick stop check, cross side close. "We don't know enough," Marinette thinks, just barely aloud. "Slip off when the song's done?" Forget half of tomorrow; they need to talk _now_ , figure out what they don't know, what they don't even _know_ they don't know…

Adrien starts subtly steering them to the side of the dance floor. "Good plan."

 _Tell me it's not a dream, before the day breaks—_ Marinette tries to smile.

A second glance at the man in the blue-violet suit and silver helmet shows he hasn't stopped watching Marinette and Adrien, though there are other dancing couples and most of those are between him and them now. He's standing with a vaguely familiar woman masked and gowned in red, dark hair swept up; this chorus echoes itself, _oh oh oh yes, I need you, oh oh oh oui, besoin de toi, oh mon chéri—_

By the elevators, a roar: gray-green and towering, black hair and black sutures—

"Who invited _Frankenstein_?" demands Lila at the top of her lungs.

* * *

Not Chloé, Adrien thinks, judging by how fast she's retreating from the dance floor. Most people are. Marinette's stone-still, staring at the monster, and Adrien's no better.

Where did that _staff_ come from—

Adrien lands hard near the spiral staircase, pushes Marinette off, bounces right back up to face the quarterstaff-wielding Halloween monster with a ready stance and a hammering heart. Half behind him, Marinette scrambles to her feet. "Back down to earth," she mutters, slapping herself on the cheeks. "The nightmare parts too."

The intro riff to 'Another One Bites the Dust' is not the best omen Nino could have queued up next.

"Okay, Spots," says Adrien, "what are we looking at?"

"I was about to ask you that." He can just see how Marinette's head is turning and eyes flickering around. "Magic monster?"

"Thanks, that's helpful—"

Muscle memory: baton at his back, staff in his hand— _thanks, that's helpful,_ Adrien tells himself, picking himself up empty-handed after Marinette tackled him out of the way.

"Blue or purple magic monster?" Marinette calls over her shoulder, bolting for the stacks of restaurant chairs in a corner. " _Get out of the way_!"

"Do I look like I know?" Adrien calls back. The monster's only like two meters tall, that's not too horrible—

( _they don't remember,_ say a susurrus of voices of people guiding a general retreat; _remember **what**?_ shriek classmates and friends)

—maybe the monster has human weak points? Even odds that this will really hurt, if so—Adrien ducks another swing; Marinette throws a chair; the monster turns to smash it midflight; Adrien's already moving to slam a knee into the crotch—

Adrien's head rings against marble.

"Kit, you gotta—" Where's—? Who—? He _knows_ that unrecognized voice! "—claws out!"

It's gone.

* * *

That monster just punched _her kitty_.

"Okay, you're a little too punchy!" Marinette yells, snatching the punch bowl from the bar, not even sure how she got there. Apple-blackberry ginger ale sloshes over the bowl's scalloped edges, splashing vodka-spiked sparkling cider on her jeans. (She is in so much trouble when she gets home smelling like this.)

The monster turns and charges: perfect. Marinette slings the punch all over the floor and jumps clear.

Slip, skid, _crash_.

_Another one bites the dust._

"Okay, now what," Marinette says to Adrien, not quite a question, not at all dashing across the slick floor to where he's sitting back up, blinking and rubbing his head and flicking glances around the dozens of guests backing away. _Just my luck,_ she dreamed him saying, before she bonked him on the head for almost making a tactical error that could cost them—could lose them—

The strategy's the same whether it's a blue or purple sort of monster: find the magic object, break it, don't forget to—to— It'll be something that stands out, probably, something the monster's magic comes from, something they don't dare lose. Just the one obvious option, then.

Marinette launches herself forward as the monster rolls back upright, just fast enough the monster swings for her, not so fast she can't grab the staff and control her—

* * *

The quarterstaff breaks with a crunch. Adrien hopes it's only the quarterstaff, not also Marinette's arm or funhouse-mirror fox-girl's leg. (Hair too dark, cloth and metal too golden, flute too plastic—) It can't be what's making the monster a monster, he thinks, rushing more cautiously to her so he doesn't spill himself or anyone else the same as fox-girl spilled herself and Marinette—

"Oh _no_ , I'm so sorry!" Lila exclaims, scrambling up onto one knee. "Let me—"

She's reaching for Marinette's shoulder.

Or so anyone who hasn't felt Lila's wandering hands will believe. _Hey, I'm gonna get you too,_ sings Freddie Mercury. One subtly unwise step spills Adrien right into both girls, where Lila can't touch Marinette without going through him, and he can reach both halves of the staff no trouble. "Ow," he says, articulately.

"Kitten, move!"

Adrien moves, shoving Lila clear; the monster vanishes in a flash of blue fire; Marinette slams the punch bowl over the escaping blue feather.

"Nobody touch that," Marinette announces, voice too steady for the trembling in her stance. "Everyone stay away from that."

Lungs and joints and muscles protest this treatment all at once. Adrien picks himself halfway up, staring at the feather floating around the inside of the wet crystal dome. "You okay?" he asks Marinette, part of his attention on offering Lila an arm up.

"I've certainly been better!" Lila snaps, her eyes flicking (is he imagining this?) to his gloved right hand when he's extending his left. "What did you do to my bracelet?"

Nothing? Oh. "That's weird," Adrien says out loud, eyeing the halves of Lila's wrist bangle lying at his feet. Lila must have kept both of these from a recent photoshoot—neither this design nor the one on her other arm is available for sale until November—but he doesn't want her or anyone to get in trouble with his father, so he says "Looks like it snapped like graphite. Even the cheapest of knockoffs aren't supposed to do that." Twenty-four-karat gold certainly isn't. _You took me for everything that I had—_

"Weird," Marinette echoes, scowling at her heeled boots, almost as fiercely as Lila's now scowling at Adrien. She balances on one foot to dry her sole on an unsplashed part of her shin, cautiously—hopefully only Adrien sees it—carefully not looking at the man in the silver helmet and blue-violet suit.

" _Wow_!" Alya's dashing over with phone camera at the ready: oddly irritating, strangely familiar. "Alya Césaire, Françoise Dupont News. What just happened? Was that a real supervillain? How did you defeat it without superpowers?"

"Excellent questions," Adrien says, standing up and pasting on a broad grin. He can hear Marinette's heart racing all the way over here.

"The public has a right to know," says a voice he knows too well. _So fragile. So easy to break._

Adrien's grin stays glued precisely in place. "If you say so, sir," Adrien says, loudly cheerful. Two paces take him to Marinette's side, where he wraps both arms around her from behind: part grounding in the physical here-and-now, part the only way he can be sure no one hears him whisper "Trap?"

Marinette nods, the barest motion up and down. "Masquerade," she murmurs without taking her eyes off the blue feather under the bowl. "Did he know we would be here?"

" _I_ didn't know I'd be here." Chloé certainly doesn't know Adrien is here, only that he wanted to be. "I didn't exactly RSVP, and sneaking out was a little chancy."

"But you put all that work into recreating your look." Marinette hugs his arms closer to her. "Was this the only time you could wear this?"

The only time, no. The only time where he might not look unusual by wearing it? Since it would be majorly not worth it to get caught sneaking into one of the six or so Parisian bars whose Halloween parties, Chloé was complaining, were competing with _her_ party… "Depends on whether there's an anime convention around here anytime soon."

Adrien pauses. For all that his friends are all here anyway, most of them remarked (though none in Chloé's line of sight) that the entire concept is one of Chloé's commercial imports from New York City, and likely to be no more fun.

"Hey, Chloé!" Marinette calls. (Adrien has missed this so much.) "Come here, please, we need a word with you!"

"Unless the word is 'I know why we're trapped'," Chloé shouts back, half a frightened sob, "fuck off!"

Adrien's stomach plummets to ground level, butterfly-filled. "We're what."

* * *

Sticky-wet denim weighs down her thoughts, face paint sits heavy on her skin, the yo-yo at her belt is too light and balances wrong, Queen's ominous percussion is still beating at her composure, and her partner's grasp is loosening.

 _There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man and bring him to the ground_ —

Marinette pivots to throw her arms around him. "We got this," she promises, though it rings hollow, like she thinks his words must have to him in the earliest dream, or the earliest but one. It rings wrong, when the nightmare man and his blood-gowned girlfriend are watching her this closely. "We will figure this out."

"Uh," Adrien says, one arm rising behind her. She turns.

—That's a _lot_ of blue feathers under the punch bowl.

"Your coat!"

Adrien whirls his coat off his shoulders and around the bowl, sleeves around the entire scalloped rim, blocking everywhere a feather could escape.

"Whoever put hallucinogens in the drinks is _fired_!" shrieks Chloé, over the sound of the ticking clock and the squeaky fan and Marinette's rising heart rate. "I'm pressing charges! And whoever locked the elevators—that's against fire code—"

"Don't jinx us, Chlo'," Adrien mutters, watching the room.

 _Jinx,_ Marinette thinks. But that's not it— _Hex, curse, omen, portent—disaster, calamity, catastrophe—_ None of these sound right!

This is as much a dance as the tango, as much a dance as the fight, and they're dancing on the head of a pin above a floor of lava, off balance and about to fall, and she _doesn't know_ how to recenter them: she barely knows how to keep her movement fluid—

"Red, move!"

Marinette doesn't realize Alya's shouting to her until Adrien knocks her to the floor. Then she's staring up at Adrien, a wooden yo-yo disk between his hands, half of the other disk clattering on the tile, half splattering a bit of punch, bits of string falling from the yo-yo peg, itself stuck a third of the way down the narrow silver blade held by an indigo-clad malediction, its tip almost scratching Adrien's nose.

 _Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives_ —

Her heart pounds. The nightmare man twists his sword, sending the rest of Marinette's yo-yo flying, and lunges, and _where is Plagg?_

"A plague on both your houses!" Marinette screams. The original English, unfogged by translators, in iambic—heartbeat—rhythm.

On 'plague': blade jerks towards her; green eyes alight. On 'both': sword strikes. Not heart.

Adrien's lips move. Green light flares. Her partner drops to one knee, growling, tail lashing, pointed ears turned back.

"Cataclysm!" Marinette shouts, leaping up.

"Cataclysm!" Adrien repeats, seizing the blade with the black glow bubbling around his hand. The sword's point pierces into the air behind him for half a heartbeat before dissolving into mist.

Marinette's already snatching the baton from her partner's back, muscle memory dividing it into a staff she hands him and a staff she holds to guard him. Nino's playlist has moved on, _caught in your own creation: look up, look up,_ and she has no words for the nightmare man.

"Spots," whispers Adrien.

"Kitty?" She's afraid to ask how he's doing, or look to see how much blood is trickling over his glove and ring. _It's nothing, I just got Cataclysmed in the ribs, I'll be fine_ are words he's said before.

"I'll live," Adrien mutters, tilting his head back. "Clock's not ticking _that_ fast." Because of course he knows what she's thinking. "Turn him into a squeaky toy for me."

When she glances down, he winks.

Oh! "Tikki—" Marinette's voice shouldn't carry even to Adrien's ears. "—spots on!"

* * *

"Lucky charm," Adrien whispers, almost before the burst of rose-pink light behind him arms and armors Marinette with perfectly fitting magic to match his own. The string of beads she gave him is still in his kangaroo pocket, somehow, even though he didn't have that one a moment ago, even though neither the phone nor the cheese wedge that were also in his slash pockets are there at all. He can't reach the charm right now, though, not without worsening the smell of his own blood; the comfort of his staff keeping him upright will have to do.

"Lucky Charm!" Marinette repeats, hurling her yo-yo into the air. She catches the double strand of red polka-dotted pearls, makes a perplexed noise, winds it around her black-gloved wrist, and zips her yo-yo out again.

A sharp sound: Adrien flings his staff at its source, takes Marinette down when he falls: behind him someone else hits the floor with a shout of pain. Marinette's already springing up, staff in hand; the man in violet crashes down, wrapped shoulder to ankle in magical cord.

"Anyone _else_?" Marinette snarls.

Adrien braces with his good hand to roll over to face the ceiling. His half-staff has boomeranged back to him; he grabs that to force himself to his feet to protect Marinette's back. (It's only pain. It's only physical. Don't mind the blood on his hand or the floor.) The woman in red is sprawled on the tile, gasping for breath and trying to sit up. Alya's still filming, wide-eyed, with Nino and Kagami on either side in guard stances; Nino's been practicing boxing with Alya's sibling, Adrien remembers vaguely, and there's probably an actual sword under the papier-mâché one whose handle Kagami is clenching so tightly it might be fused to her hand. Everyone else seems to be backed as far away from the battle as they can get.

"Is anyone hurt?" Adrien calls out. _That original lifeline,_ Florence sings.

"Just you." Marc's voice is shaking. Over by the bar, he and Nathaniel are clutching each other. _Original lifeline._ "There's a hole in Chloé's wall, though."

"We've got the gun," Rose adds. It takes a moment to find her under the pink Chibiusa wig—she's next to Juleka, which is how Adrien places her—and there is indeed a handgun at her feet.

Adrien does not want to think any more about that. Or about how much the woman in red sounds like his mother, or his would-be stepmother, overexerted and pained and clinging to consciousness like someone drowning clings to anything that floats.

"Hey, Knightowl," Marinette says, some of the fury and the chill leaving her voice. "Come hold this."

"Me?" asks Nino, lowering his fists.

"Yeah, you." That tone means Marinette's smiling. "You're a superhero, aren't you?" _You are flesh and blood—_

"I don't even play one on TV," Nino retorts, but he's already crossing to her, Alya and Kagami keeping pace.

Adrien would do this himself if he thought he could take a single step without falling again. "Sailor Mercury," he says to Kagami. "Go check the woman in red for weapons."

"You heard him," Marinette says; Adrien can hear her footsteps moving surely across the floor, louder than the slight rattle of the butt of his staff on the tile. "Majestia, keep filming."

 _There's a hole where your heart lies,_ Florence sings. Behind Adrien there's a burst of violet light, then one of blue.

"Well, if it isn't father of the year," Nino growls.

"Knightowl," snaps Marinette, chiding. "Someone go get duct tape or something."

Kagami peels the mask off the red-gowned woman. This must still be a dream, Adrien almost says: why would the person who tried to shoot his lady be _Nathalie_ , unless he's caught in a night terror?

"So this was a set-up," Chloé says, shaking somewhere over by the elevators. "Making my Halloween party a masquerade was _your_ idea."

But these are _his_ ears, not leather triangles sewn on a headband; _his_ claws, not metal points sewn onto leather. "Hey, Spots," Adrien says, eyeing the black pearls Nathalie's wearing. It's not from Adrien's mother's jewelry box, but it looks like it could be, if they were white pearls. "That Lucky Charm." Ugh, keeping his tone and breathing even is _hard_. "Looks like Nathalie Sancoeur's necklace, doesn't it?"

* * *

Marinette releases Gabriel Agreste, now that Ivan, Mylène, and Luka are close enough to grab him. Her yo-yo zips back to her, a sound more reassuring than the weight of a brooch and a pin in the pocket at her hip.

 _Please tell me there's a user's guide,_ she thinks, thumbing the button and darting back to Adrien's side. (He's swaying, though she doubts he wants her to know that.) The yo-yo opens up to a phone-like screen showing the user's guide navigation. _Sweet._ It's organized sensibly, too, she thinks, flicking through it as she crosses to Kagami and to Nathalie Sancoeur: two-line summaries that link to pages with more detail she doesn't have time to examine. Break the amok item, like Lila's bracelet, or the akuma item, which might just be those black pearls—

"Yeah," Marinette says, comparing the clasp at the nape of Sancoeur's neck to the one at her own wrist: they have identical interlocked-ring designs etched into the metal. "Yeah," she says, unhooking Sancoeur's necklace, "I think it—"

Sancoeur snatches the necklace back and smashes it on the tile, then faints, almost before the violet smoke has left a business suit in place of her crimson gown.

Marinette whips her yo-yo out to catch the fleeing purple butterfly.

Almost done, she thinks, hearing someone muffle Gabriel Agreste's snarls. Just the blue feathers left. Then fixing everything. If Marinette can fix anything.

Adrien's knees hit the floor. He's caught himself on his staff already, but the way he's breathing is far too much like the time she had to promise him they would get their powers back and she'd heal him. And there's _far_ too much blood on his armor; when he's leaning on her, far too much blood on her hip.

"Us against the world," Marinette whispers. Staff in one hand to knock Adrien's jacket sleeves away from the punch bowl and flip it over by its scalloped edge. Yo-yo in the other hand to capture a whole plucked peacock's worth of feathers. "I free you from evil!" It sounds timeworn at best, but she trusts whoever wrote the guide. Even if it does turn out it was herself. "Bye-bye, little butterfly."

The butterfly and the feathers shine white and float away. Adrien sneezes.

* * *

"Miraculous Ladybug," Adrien murmurs, but Marinette doesn't need the cue. The sparkling pink ladybugs sweep over them, over the guests and the broken things and the spilled punch, and Chat Noir realizes his nose is almost in Ladybug's navel, where she certainly does not want it to be.

He bounces to his feet, putting an arm's length between them. Or he tries to: he almost isn't standing yet when Ladybug throws herself into his arms. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she sobs, and before Chat Noir can figure out what she's sorry _for_ , she pulls herself together with a deep breath and force of will. "Grab your coat and let's go," she orders, handing back his half-baton, and bolts for the spiral staircase, snatching her abandoned bag off the sofa as she passes.

On the roof, Ladybug hesitates. Chat Noir catches her around the waist without pausing: "Chloé's," he says, doing an about-face to vault down to Chloé's balcony.

When he sets her on her feet and turns to the glass doors, she doesn't follow. "I don't know what to do," Ladybug says, hugging herself and looking away. "I don't want to let you out of my sight, but you need to be somewhere your friends can find you, but I shouldn't even _know_ that, and this is the absolute worst time to realize I want to kiss you till we forget our names—" She squeaks, clapping both hands over her mouth.

How has he never before seen Marinette behind Ladybug's mask? —No, that's a lie: for a few glorious minutes several months ago, he _knew_. And then she said _that's very sweet of you_ to mistake her for the real hero. Kagami knew without knowing, too: she broke up with him saying she knew his heart was Marinette's, and she had no more believed him at first that he wasn't pining for Marinette than he had remembered Ladybug didn't want him.

"Forgotten," Chat Noir says, though the word tastes like his blood smelled. He slides open the door and sweeps her a bow. "After you. I have a change of costume here," he adds, following her inside. "I'm going to find Nino and pretend I was here all along."

"If you think the party's the best place to be," Ladybug says, swaying in place. "I mean. He's your father."

"He's Adrien's father," Chat Noir mutters, as though there's any distinction anymore, or ever was. He can't—he _cannot_ think about that. Not yet. Not now. "I don't know what to feel. I don't know if anything I feel is real." The garment bag he got Chloé to arrange for him should be—yes, it's draped over one of the sofas, with the hat box and shoe box on a cushion. "Claws in."

Adrien snatches Plagg out of the air, slides down beside the sofa, and tries not to let his partner hear him cry.

* * *

Marinette's partner is over there crying, and what's she doing about it? Nothing. Stripping off the denim and cotton and leather that she knew was the entirely wrong texture and silhouette when she put it on. Scrubbing all the makeup off with squirts of the makeup remover that came with her clown kit. Splashing water on her face and armpits and hoping Chloé won't notice her hand towel hangs differently when she's done with it. Joke's on Marinette; she thinks she looked almost the same in her magical armor as without, tonight, and if she opens her mouth to ask Tikki about that or exclaim in joy that she has Tikki back or ask where Tikki's been, the words coming out will be _I love you, Adrien_ , and he is dating Kagami who is her friend she doesn't want to hurt (and before that she told him to stop bringing her red roses!) and she cannot _do that to him_.

She steps into the leotard. Steps into the heels. Uses the alcohol wipe on the ladybeetle earrings coming off and the star earrings going on. Turns her bag to be pink denim out, not red. Stuffs it with her clothes and boots and hair clips and sewing kit. Hands Tikki a cookie. Finger-combs her hair. Secures the foam tiara.

…Raps on the wall he's on the far side of. "Do you want a hug?"

"…yes, please."

Adrien's leather clothes are piled together on the end of one sofa. Fortunately for Marinette's composure, he's wearing dress slacks and a tank top, and the formal white shirt is on if not buttoned. Getting distracted by how strong he is or how safe she feels in his arms is not going to help when she needs to be the strong one and the safe place for him.

"You're my partner," she tells him. "That's real."

* * *

_Some way, I don't know how, she'll bring her love to me_ …

Adrien wakes with a song already stuck in his head. If he's even awake: he can smell bread baking, which is entirely too _Marinette's home_ an aroma to be anything but Adrien's imagination. _Dream lover, until then, I'll go to sleep and dream again,_ though conflating Marinette and the girl of his dreams is no more fair to her than it's ever been.

Delightful as it is to envision Marinette's 'you're such a dork' smile paired with the laughter in Ladybug's blue eyes when she connects his red silk rose and white mask to his white-tie ensemble—marvelous as it is to imagine Ladybug increasingly sharply repeating "Adrien didn't know" as the weapon Marinette's protecting him with, or muttering "Quick-change artist" when Lila and her princess tiara and vermilion sheath gown have skulked off again, or getting Chloé to distract the authorities while Ladybug sneaks Adrien to safety—incredible as it is to believe the soothing warmth he's curled around is his best friend and his partner, to say nothing of a woman who's breathtaking when dressed as Sailor Mars and awe-inspiring when kicking ass in red denim—

No, he's projecting what he feels for Ladybug onto Marinette, because they're so alike, and that's no way to properly appreciate Marinette herself. And Father and Nathalie being their enemies might be the dream's price for giving him the power to break out of any cage and a friend who'll never let him be caged alone, or for melding Marinette and Ladybug into a single stellar person—it might even be a price he'll cheerfully pay!—but when he wakes up, none of that will be true. The pieces fit together _too_ well. Even in the dreams, that's dreaming.

The earworm is looping: _Hold me in loving arms, feel the magic of her charms,_ feel her bare fingers laced between his own.

"Good morning, lovebirds!" Plagg shouts in Adrien's ear. Marinette startles badly enough to dump herself and Adrien on the floor and try to backhand Plagg out the window.

Adrien sits up, blinking around Marinette's living room. The star earrings and tiara came off at some point (though as rumpled as the rest of her costume is, he doesn't think Marinette took them off), and there are rubbed-raw spots on the backs of her bare heels, probably matching the tops of the red shoes discarded by the foot of the sofa next to Adrien's own opera pumps and the top hat and white gloves dropped on the heap of vest and red-lined cape. They're both still tangled in a soft blue-and-white knit wool afghan he thinks he remembers seeing folded in a basket by the television stand.

These aren't details he'd think to dream about. Are they?

"Good morning," Marinette says, yawning. "To everyone except Plagg." She slumps sideways against Adrien, tilting her chin with semiconscious deliberation to press her lips to the corner of his jaw, then pries herself up. "Kitten, coffee? Bread jam, bread egg, bread chocolate?"

"You're not making any sense," Adrien says, staring awed after her as she wanders to the kitchen. Tikki's chasing Plagg through the air: funny but only a momentary distraction—

He knows Tikki's name. He knows _Plagg_ 's name.

Ladybug is standing in her kitchen, fiddling with her phone till it plays piano and bells with claps and a low steady drumbeat, and saying "Breakfast is the way to your heart, right?"

"…Plagg likes Camembert," Adrien says, quiet: too loud a sound might shatter the moment. "Tikki—cookies, I think? What about you?"

Marinette knocks two mugs out of the cupboard, one clattering on the counter, one spinning on its rim till it settles. "Uh, pain au chocolat," she says, righting the other mug, and yawns again. "Papa has some downstairs. Unless Maman sold them all already."

Adrien's on his feet almost without meaning to, moving closer like she or he might spook if he hurries, watching her fill the electric kettle, watching her fetch down the coffee beans, grinder, and press, watching her sparkle in the early-morning light.

 _You are a call to motion: there, all of you a verb in perfect view_ —

"Dance with me?" he asks.

She fits in his arms better than she ever has, warm and soft and strong. "Love you," she murmurs, languid.

The music's still going, slow and sweet, and she's still fluidly moving; otherwise he'd stop dead. "Do you really?"

Marinette snorts. "Love you more after coffee."

"You and your coffee," Adrien murmurs, amused. He sways them around the kitchen to flick on the kettle on the way past.

**Author's Note:**

> • Athanase, The Fragrance, or [Mummeries and Straining-to-be Memorable Passages](https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/activism/scalia/mummeries-straining-memorable-passages/) by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab  
> • Aurélien, The Fragrance, or [Katharina](https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/general-catalog-perfume-oils/illyria/katharina/) by BPAL
> 
> • [one of Astruc's adult Ladybug sketches](https://miraculousladybug.fandom.com/wiki/File:Adult_Ladybug_with_Jacket_and_Pants_Sketch_by_Astruc.jpg)
> 
> I haven't a clue what version of _Romeo and Juliet_ Marinette would be most familiar with, or even if there's more than one French version, but the [Guizot 1864](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18143/18143-h/18143-h.htm) is right there for me. Also, shakespeare.mit.edu (and classics.mit.edu and probably several other mit.edu resource sites)? Cooperate with [HTTPS Everywhere](https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) I _beg_ you!
> 
> Thanks to noirshitsuji, CheshireMadd, and JocundaSykes for beta work 🙂
> 
> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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